


Award or No Award

by geezers



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Drabble, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 21:06:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/geezers/pseuds/geezers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A drabble about Cristiano and Irina just before the Ballon d'Or gala.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Award or No Award

“Please, stop pacing, you’re making me nervous.” Irina said, taking Cristiano’s hand and bringing him to a halt by doing so. He had been pacing around their hotel room for nigh on 45 minutes. Even as the stylists, make-up artists and his publicist flitted around the room, he hadn’t stopped once.

The Swiss evening was cold, but not uncomfortably so, and Cristiano looked in the mirror and straightened the cuffs on his shirt. He always cared about how he looked, but Irina could tell that this wasn’t about looking good, the tightness in his jaw and the stony look in his usually warm eyes were all indicators of the immense pressure he was feeling. 

It had been 4 years since Cristiano had managed to win the Ballon d’Or, and with each year that passed, he found it even harder to face the ceremony. Even in the years when everyone he came into contact with him said he was a shoo-in for the award, he never let himself believe it. Messi was FIFA’s golden boy, and Cristiano would have been naïve to think otherwise. Although Irina secretly thought that Cristiano thrived on being seen as the underdog. 

Quietly, Irina asked if everyone could give them a second alone, and they all filtered out of the room quietly, the door sounding with a click as the last person vacated. Cristiano was still in a world of his own, looking towards the mirror, but not actually looking at it. 

Irina put one hand on his shoulder to turn him around and another cupping the back of his neck. She pulled Cristiano into a hug and just held him for a second. All day Irina had been trying to figure out what best to say, sentimental acts weren’t her strongest attribute, whereas it all came so naturally to Cris. Despite what others may think, Cristiano was incredibly loving and so thoughtful, it took Irina by surprise on multiple occasions. Sometimes she’d arrive at her hotel room in a strange foreign country for a shoot, only to find a bouquet of flowers waiting for her with the simple message ‘ _Good luck, I love you x_ ’ or a reference to one of their in-jokes that would have her doubled over with laughter in seconds while everyone else looked on completely lost. Sometimes he’d call her, even when she knew it was the middle of the night in Madrid. _”I know what time it is, I just wanted to hear your voice”_ he’d say.

It was on a regular basis that Irina felt she didn’t deserve someone like Cristiano, he was so much more than he let the outside world see, and it broke her heart to see people judging him on a daily basis. They thought they were seeing all of Cristiano, but what they were getting was only a tiny fraction of an incredible man. 

“Award or no award, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” Irina whispered quietly, pressing a kiss to his cheek. 

When she pulled back, she saw the smile on his face. Not his public smile – the one for the cameras – but the one that only a few people got to see. Where the skin around his eyes crinkled at little more, his laugh lines were a little deeper – a smile Irina felt privileged to see. Apart from her, she’d only ever seen Cristiano smile like that at his mother and at his son, a smile of sheer love. 

Someone knocked quietly on the door, and poked their head inside, informing the pair that they had to leave for the gala. Irina slipped on her shoes, took Cristiano’s hand and they left.


End file.
